


quite a view

by nosecoffee



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: 5 + 1, Angst, Canon Compliant, Dmitry can't make tea, Dmitry's POV, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humour, Hurt/Comfort, Learn To Do It Timeline, Let's Pretend There Was More Romantic Tension in Learn To Do It Than There Was, Male-Female Friendship, Pining, The Kids Can't Cook, Vague Slow Burn, Vlad is Dmitry's new dad, Vlad is a Dad, Waltzing, fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 04:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: Anya is like Petersburg, because she's always doing something, never still, not even when she sleeps, constantly in motion. In the quiet moments there is her smile. In the dark there are her harsh quips. In Petersburg there is Anya, and in Anya there is Petersburg.(Or, five times Dmitry didn't know how to feel about Anya, and one time he wanted to kiss her.)





	quite a view

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "My Petersburg" from Anastasia
> 
> The dancing from Learn To Do It prompted this. I just really wanted to write them waltzing.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

**1.**

Dmitry cannot believe that Vlad wants to pose the amnesiac street sweeper as their Anastasia. He's come up with worse plans, it's true, but Dmitry is seriously dubious over whether this girl can pull it off.

Granted, Dmitry is worked up after all the failed auditions, and all the promises from angry would-be-actresses to report him to the authorities. He doesn't mean what he says about her, he knows she's not crazy, even if she doesn't know her real name.

She tells a story of how she walked half of Russia, of how she still had dreams of fire and the voices of her family, whoever they might turn out to be, of how she jumps at the sounds of gunshots, and trucks backfiring, and how she knows that someone who loves her is in Paris, or at least was, before she lost her memory.

Anya tells Dmitry he can't know what it's like to have forgotten everything, and though he can't fault her for that, she says it like an accusation.

Nevertheless, Vlad poses the question to Anya, and says, "There is a resemblance to the Grand Duchess."

And Anya looks starstruck.

Dmitry knows that they have no choice now.

He berates Vlad when she leaves, and yells that there's so much to teach her, and she really doesn't know what she's signing up for, but Vlad is adamant.

"She's the one, Dima." He says, leans back in his chair. Dmitry likes to think that it's karma when an echoing crack sounds and the chair splinters and breaks, beneath him. Vlad is less smug, and spends at least two hours, that night, extracting splinters from his legs.

Anya arrives back at the palace after working her shift on the streets, her face sooty and the hem of her skirt coated in mud, but there.

And Dmitry reluctantly accepts that she's the one.

She reads Vlad's notes like a children's fairytale, and asks whether they mean all they say. It takes everything in Dmitry to keep his composure.

~

**2.**

Dmitry still isn't quite sure where Vlad got all the ingredients to make a half-decent stroganoff, but he's not complaining as he sets a plate of it down in front of Anya.

Anya, however wrinkles her nose. "I never cared for stroganoff." She says to Vlad as Dmitry rounds her chair and adjusts her posture, much to her obvious chagrin. Dmitry rolls his eyes.

Vlad smiles, like he honestly can't believe she'd say anything like that and says, "She said that like a Romanov," out of the corner of his mouth.

Dmitry sighs and takes a seat in the last chair at the table. "At least have some tea." He says, and gestures to the steaming, chipped, ceramic mug to the right of her plate. "We'll find another meal for you to practice on, if you're so reluctant to eat this lovingly prepared stroganoff, but there is tea here."

Anya scowls at him - he knows she isn't fond of him, and she's often quick to remind him of it, especially when they butt heads - and picks up the cup, holding it in her hands like it's something precious. Dmitry supposes it is quite cold inside the theatre, but he really doesn't like any of the other rundown rooms in the palace.

Anya takes a sip and immediately gags, swallowing the mouthful she drank for lack of anywhere to spit it out. "Oh, my god." She groans, sticking her tongue out in disgust. She peers into the cup. "Who made this?"

"I did." Dmitry says, his confidence waning because of her reaction to the tea.

"This is terrible." Anya tells him, matter-of-factly, and sets the cup down beside her rejected stroganoff.

"You really don't have any room to complain." Dmitry huffs, ignoring how her comment actually hurt his feelings. His father taught him how to make tea, and Vlad never complained. What kind of pampered tastebuds did this girl have to dislike his tea? "You'll have to drink a lot of terrible tea once you're the Grand Duchess, again."

Anya raises a dubious eyebrow at him, pushing the plate of stroganoff towards a silent, judging Vlad, and placing the napkin that had been resting in her lap on the table. "I seriously don't believe that."

"You can take my advice, or you can complain about tea for the rest of your life." Dmitry replies, crossing his arms over his chest.

Anya looks away from him and sighs, "When's dessert?"

"When you drink your tea and eat your stroganoff." Vlad says, through a mouthful of the aforementioned stroganoff.

"You can eat my stroganoff," Anya replies, smiling at Vlad, and then she turns to Dmitry, "and I'll make some better tea, so you can see that you just suck at making tea."

Anya tugs Dmitry out into the freezing hallway and towards the kitchen - the only other room they use in the palace. Vlad says it's so that they keep all their stuff in one place, making for an easier escape, should they need it, and it means that they're always together.

When Anya first moved in she said she would sleep on the floor if she had to, she was just so thankful to not be sleeping under a bridge anymore. Dmitry knows the feeling.

She takes her time cleaning out the infuser and scolding Dmitry for letting tea leaves build up in it, poking at the coals with a stick, until she's satisfied with how the samovar is working.

Anya always looks strange in the darkness. Her eyes are piercing, and her smile curves in a way that catches the light. It's almost like she was born of light, but can only be properly seen in the dark. She reminds him of Petersburg in that way.

Not a place he particularly likes, but, at night, on the bridge overlooking Catherine Canal, when the lights catch the water and glimmer like stars he can't see through the smoke anymore, it's a place he can call his own.

Anya is like Petersburg, because she's always doing something, never still, not even when she sleeps, constantly in motion. In the quiet moments there is her smile. In the dark there are her harsh quips. In Petersburg there is Anya, and in Anya there is Petersburg.

"Dmitry?" He snaps from his train of thought, Anya holding the teapot, brewed an ready in her hand. "Did you hear a word I just said?"

Dmitry shakes his head, numbly. Anya tuts and takes his wrist in her hand, leading him back to the theatre.

(He doesn't tell her, but he agrees that her tea is better, and he doesn't thank her for cleaning out the samovar, but he keeps in mind what she said about keeping it in good shape.)

(Dmitry doesn't tell her what he thought. That's for him, and him alone.)

~

**3.**

Dmitry's actually not quite sure what he said, exactly. It might have been about her height, or the way she was "floating" was like a sinking boat, or her "little brother", Alexei.

Either way, he still finds himself on the receiving end of her screams as she tells them that _she's finished, she can't do it, she wishes they'd never met, and would they just get out, already?_

Dmitry raises his hands up, in surrender, stepping forward, and realises his mistake when she grabs the book off of her head and tosses it at him. He tries to dodge, but the corner of the spine digs into his thigh.

Dmitry yelps in pain and rubs at his leg as she retreats to a chair on the other end of the room. He harbours no pity for her, in that moment. Vlad raises an eyebrow at him, and gestures to her shaking form. Dmitry shakes his head.

Vlad sags and walks over to her, instead.

Dmitry picks up her book. The truth is, she's getting better at the whole "try to float instead of walking" thing. Considering that all the time she spends outside of the palace is spent hunched over, sweeping at the muddy streets, Dmitry is impressed. But he wouldn't tell her that.

And besides, he's sure she'd much rather Vlad talk her down than Dmitry.

His thigh still aches, but he's sure it'll only bruise, so at least there's that. He glances over to Anya and sees Vlad struggling to his knees by her feet.

He speaks softly to her, and pulls his old handkerchief out of his sleeve.

Dmitry inches closer, under the guise of placing Anya's book on top of the dozens of others by her chair.

"You have courage, and strength you barely know," Dmitry hears Vlad say.

"You really think so?" Anya sniffles. Her face is red. Dmitry feels guilt wash over him. He really upset her, this time. It's that or they've just been working her so hard that she's gotten frustrated.

"I do." Vlad says, and his voice is the most earnest that Dmitry's heard in ages. He clasps Anya's hands in his. Dmitry knows that it's Vlad's surefire way of calming people down. "A Princess, like your majesty, can do this, if she tries. You've come a long way, already."

"Okay, okay." Anya pulls her hands away and wipes at her face, evening Ng out her breath. "You're right."

She stands back up and her eye settle on Dmitry. He tentatively offers her the book she threw at him. "Uh, I'm sorry, Anya." He says, sheepishly.

She sports an unimpressed look on her face, but takes the book from him, anyway. There's something softening in her eyes. "Apology accepted."

The book returns to her head,and Anya continues her rounds around the chair in the middle of the room. Dmitry helps Vlad back onto his feet. They return to their questioning.

Dmitry thinks he catches Anya smiling at him from behind her hand, when Vlad demonstrates the bow, and she nails it, on the first try.

~

**4.**

Anya's seated on one of the only intact chairs in the whole palace, the rest splintered or smashed to pieces, and scattered around the whole place. It's only been a few days since Anya screamed at him and threw a book at him, but she acts like it never happened, now, smiling as pleasantly as she can manage and floating around the palace, as instructed.

Vlad says she's turned over a new leaf. The bruise on Dmitry's thigh protests, but he ignores the pain.

Vlad decided to surprise Anya with a speed study session before a quiz, today no Dmitry's not actually sure that it's the best idea, but who is he to go against the faux-count? He trusts the man with his life, even if he fumbles sometimes.

Vlad holds Anya's attention well, Dmitry will give him that, as he wheels the chalkboard onto the stage, earning Anya's gaze and her soft smile. Dmitry frowns at the floor, and places the chalkboard next to Vlad.

Vlad is excitedly speaking to Anya, but Dmitry's zoned out. The words don't even make sense. They're speaking in a completely different language. That's why Vlad's so excited. He's realised Anya is (somehow) fluent in French.

Dmitry catches a few words he recognises. His name. Anya's.

He's completely caught off guard when Vlad flips the chalkboard, and the corner slams into Dmitry's nose, sending him stumbling, backwards, into the wall, clutching at his face. Anya makes a surprised sound and drops her book on the ground as she stands, rushing over to him.

He can feel the blood dripping down from the bridge of his nose, dripping out of his nose, and he hears Vlad's heavy footsteps as he too hurries over, apologising profusely.

"Dmitry?" Anya asks, going to her knees beside him as he slides down the wall, onto his ass. She takes his head in her hands, stopping it from lolling onto his shoulder. "Oh, dear."

"Is he okay?" Vlad inquires, getting as close to them as he dares.

Dmitry's vision is swimming, and he nearly laughs in embarrassment at the realisation that he's starting to cry. Anya looks very concerned, prying his hand away from his nose. Her finger is smeared with his blood.

Dmitry will blame it on the pain, later, but he reaches out and rubs at the blood on her finger until it's gone. He doesn't notice how Anya goes still.

"It doesn't look broken." Anya notes, pressing her fingers, gently to his nose. He hisses when she touches the cut on the bridge of his nose. A trickle of blood from his left nostril drips onto his lip and Dmitry reaches sup to wipe it away with his wrist.

Anya shakes her head and tuts, pulling his arm away, and pulling an off-white handkerchief from her sleeve. "There's some vodka in the kitchen, yes?" She's addressing Vlad, but she's dabbing at Dmitry's lip, and at Dmitry's nose with her handkerchief. "And that spare cloth you stole?"

Vlad nods, and she gets to her feet. Leaving her handkerchief in Dmitry's hands. "I'll be back in just a moment." Anya sprints from the room. Vlad crouches beside him and his mouth twists.

Dmitry pulls the handkerchief up to eye level and winces at the spreading bloodstains. "She's really something, isn't she?" Dmitry says, conversationally. He attempts a smile, but feels more blood trickle down his face and into the crevices between his teeth. Dmitry swears and immediately dabs at his teeth, eventually giving up and pressing the handkerchief to his nostril in an attempt to slow the blood flow.

Vlad frowns, sadly. His voice has that quiet, piteous tone it did when Dmitry first met him, when he says, "She'll break your heart, Dima."

Dmitry freezes, and scowls at the floor. "I don't know what you're talking about." He mumbles.

"Dima, please." He resists the urge to flinch when Vlad takes his hand, sighing. "You know I'm right."

"I'm not in love with her." Dmitry fights. He can't be. He's not. She threw a book at him. She glares at him over dinner every night. She can't stand him. Why would Dmitry ever be in love with her?

"If we succeed, and the Dowager Empress takes Anya in, you'll never see her again." Vlad continues, pushing his spectacles up and wincing as he sits down, properly, beside Dmitry.

"And what if we fail?" Dmitry snaps, feeling more tears sting at his eyes. "Then would I ever stand a chance, at all? I don't love her."

"Dima." Vlad whispers, sounding so sad. This time, Dmitry does flinch. It's bad enough that Vlad picked up the nickname in the first place, but when he says it like that, he sounds like Dmitry's father, right before they hauled him off to the labour camp, where he died.

"Don't." Dmitry whispers, harshly. The tears roll down his face. He hopes Anaya thinks it's just the pain. Then again, why does he care what she thinks?

"I only want what's best for you." The older man says, and Dmitry inhales deeply, keeping those embarrassing sounds in his throat, unwilling to let go, like that.

"You're not my dad." Dmitry says, and rips his hand away. There's a hush. Far away, he thinks he can hear Anya's quick, soft footsteps on the aged wood of the palace floors. Dmitry closes his eyes, and raises a hand to wipe at them. He's hesitant to ask, but he does it, anyway. "Is this what it felt like, for you?"

"Hm?" Vlad hums, apparently deciding to act cheerful for the moment. He does that when he's stewing. He doesn't like it when people poke and prod at his feelings. In that way, he and Dmitry aren't so different.

"With Lily." Dmitry clarifies, and notes the flash of pain in Vlad's eyes when he says her name. "Is this how it felt for you with her? Did you ever feel this hopeless?"

"I..." Vlad trails off, a faraway look in his eyes.

Dmitry finds himself sitting up, out of his slumped position. He's never asked so much of Vlad's past before. He's so genuinely curious, so desperate for any kind or relation he can share with the older man. He's so hopeless that he'll take what he can get. "Did you love her?"

"I think I might have." Vlad says, after a moment of contemplation. He sighs. "But she was married. I never let myself forget that. She was a countess, and I was a commoner, and she was married, and I haven't seen her in years."

"Vlad..." Dmitry says and reaches out.

Vlad clasps his hand, firmly. "Don't make the same mistake."

Anya returns a second later, a bottle of vodka and cloth clamped in one hand, and a stack of three, mismatched vodka glasses in the other. "I figure the lesson can wait." She says to them as she sets the glasses on the floor and gets on her knees by Dmitry.

"Where'd you learn to do this?" Dmitry asks her, between yelling at how his nose stings when she dabs some vodka to the cut on the bridge of his nose.

Her mouth twists up in a half-smile. "They taught me bits and pieces at the hospital, in Perm." Anya replies. Dmitry tries to take it on the chin.

He doesn't look at either of them, directly in the eye for the rest of the night.

Thankfully, Anya doesn't seem to notice, and Dmitry attempts to drown himself in vodka.

~

**5.**

They've been waltzing for hours, almost all day, in fact, but Vlad has denied them dinner until they've perfected it. Who knows what events they'll have to attend, he'd said, and who knows if they'll have to dance? They can never be too prepared. Anya reluctantly agreed, and sucked it up to spend the next week or so dancing with Dmitry.

At this point, they've mastered the steps, and spins, and dips. In fact, Anya's very adept at dancing, once she got over stamping on his feet. Dmitry can soundly say that he's also improved from the more hoppy steps he'd used enforce Vlad stepped in with a stern, yet affectionate expression and helped them.

Anya took off her shoes three hours ago, bemoaning blisters that Dmitry has no doubt are real, and stands, shorter than usual, in her hole-ridden socks, sleeves rolled up, looking determined, and exhausted. Her boots have a heel that Dmitry never noticed before, and now that she's without them, she stands an entire head shorter than him.

He only hesitated slightly before teasing Anya over it, which wasn like him at all.

Now, they're trying to get the simple lift Vlad assigned them right. He had frowned at them and said that any lifts others would do at a ball or a dance would be much more complex than anything they could do, but they should have somewhere to start.

It's just Dmitry carefully lifting her by her waist as high as he can while spinning. All Anya has to do is push off of his shoulders. It's a struggle on both their parts, which is only a little embarrassing.

Anya blows another stray strand of hair out of her eyes and fixes her gaze on him, where he's resting against the wall, by the chalkboard. "Come on. No dinner until we get this right."

"I know." Dmitry sighs and sheds his waistcoat. He sees her eyes follow it to the floor behind him. "I can just never get it right."

He's right. He knows she knows. Dmitry has lost count of all the times he's nearly dropped her, and all the times that he's actually dropped her. Anya rubs at her face, frustratingly. They can smell whatever Vlad's concocted for dinner from all the way in the theatre. It's just making Dmitry hungrier.

"You know what we're doing wrong?" Anya says, crossing her arms over her chest.

"What?" Dmitry responds.

"We're doing the lift from a standing start." She says, and her tongue darts out to wet her lips. Dmitry is mildly transfixed for a moment, before he registers that he's staring at Anya's lips, and snaps out of it. "I'll bet that we both have a better grip on the whole ordeal if we try it in the middle of the dance."

Dmitry considers the statement. "You want to try that?" He says to her.

Anya shrugs, but he can tell that she's been thinking it over for a good while. "I figure it's worth a shot."

"Alright." Dmitry lets his hands slap into his thighs, the sound echoing around the largely empty room. "Lets go, Grand Duchess."

Anya rolls her eyes, and meets him in the middle of the stage. Her hand is warm in his, and her eyes are steely with concentration. Dmitry closes a hand around her waist and takes a deep breath.

"One two three, one two three, one two three, go."

They begin their waltz, spinning and stepping with practiced ease, and Dmitry breathes out a small sigh of relief that he hasn't forgotten in the time they've been trying the lift.

They round the chair, and he spins her out, Anya immediately coming back to grip his shoulder. The dip is easy enough to slide into and Anya laughs a little.

Soon enough, in the dance, after the third round of the chair, Dmitry's laughing too. It echoes, and amplifies, but he really doesn't care. The tension in him drains.

"Want to try the lift now?" Anya asks him.

"Okay." Dmitry says, nodding and spinning her. "You ready?"

Anya nods back. They round the chair once more and Dmitry bends his knees, taking her waist in his hands. Anya's hands curl, gently into his shoulders. He lifts, she pushes, they spin.

Anya whoops as she descends, and they return to their original position, and continue the waltz. "We did it!" Anya cries, and Dmitry can't help but smile.

"We did!" He agrees, and laughs.

She doesn't even have to say anything,and they both slide into the lift, again. She releases his shoulders, on her way up, this time, throwing her arms up, landing on the floor with a thump, only mildly muffled by her socks.

They laugh, and Dmitry watches in something akin to wonder as she tips her head back and laughs harder than he's heard in ages.

Once more, he lifts her, and Anya cries, "Higher, papa!" Voice higher and younger, somehow.

She comes down, and they slide, effortlessly, into a dip. They still, breathing hard.

Anya is still smiling, but Dmitry frowns. "What did you say?" He asks, thinking back to her delight at being up in the air like that.

She cocks her head to the side, and they straighten up, back to a standstill, a few inches between them, not enough to be considered proper. Dmitry takes a step back. "I thought..." Anya taps her chin, and frowns, mouth twisting, eyeing the floor. "I don't know what I thought. I was just having fun, I think."

Dmitry dismisses the thought that comes to mind - what could a younger Anya have been doing at a dance with her father? - and smiles. "But we did it. Vlad will certainly grant us dinner now."

Anya nods in agreement. "Lets go get him." She says, running ahead of him, out of the theatre, to where Vlad's been cooking a can of beans in an old pot.

Dmitry glances back to the stage, the dust marking where they'd been dancing.

It must be a coincidence. That Anya would remember something so subtle, so specific. He follows her out, stomach growling.

~

**+1**

Dmitry stares at her. She's rambling, she's speaking so fast, she's staring at the music box as though it holds the secrets to the universe.

Anya slips between French and Russian, and Dmitry watches it all play out with wide eyes. She started the whole ordeal by singing a lullaby that Dmitry hadn't heard in years. It had been popular around his childhood, but what with the Revolution, no one had time to sing their kids to sleep, being good and loyal comrades.

Now, Anya is speaking too fast for him to understand. Dmitry walks forward slowly. Anya doesn't react. He closes his hands over hers, closing the music box.

She goes still, falls silent, her eyes fixed somewhere over his shoulder.

"Anya." Dmitry says, trying not to startle her. Her eyes are glazed over. She looks faint.

Dmitry doesn't think he's strong enough to carry her back to the palace.

"I'm not strong enough to carry you back to the palace, so don't faint on me." Dmitry says to her, echoing his thoughts. Anya blinks, and looks up at him.

"Sorry, I just..." her face goes neutral and her mouth sets in a hard line. "Now, you close you eyes and hold out your hand."

"Why?" Dmitry asks, a little irritated, but mostly curious. He can only hope she hasn't decided that now, in her memory-dazed state, is the best time to play a practical joke on him.

"We've got to be getting out of here." Anaya replies, as if that's a viable answer. Her hand is stuffed deep in her coat pocket. "They're cancelling trains left and right, soon we'll be stuck, and I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"Anya, we don't have enough money yet, even with all the extra shifts you've been working." Dmitry says to her, feeling terrible. He'd thought they'd have the money for it, at this point, but it turns out he was more ambitious than he ought to be.

Anya huffs and pushes, gently, at his shoulder, with the hand not in her pocket. "Just close your eyes, Dima." He feels his breath hitch at the nickname. Dmitry closes his eyes and holds his left hand out, palm up.

Something cold and jagged and small is placed in his hand. "Okay," Anya says, "open your eyes."

"Oh my god." A diamond sits in the middle of his palm. It's small and strangely cut, but unmistakably a diamond. He could get them first class tickets on a train to Paris with it easily.

"One of the nurses at the hospital found it sewn into my underclothes." Anya explains, and watches him inspect the diamond, between his thumb and index finger, it's sparkles in the lights of Petersburg below them. "She told me never to tell a soul and to use it only when I truly needed to, and only to tell someone I truly trusted. I truly trust you, Dmitry."

"You had this, the whole time?" Dmitry demands, not meaning to sound so accusatory, but he's just so stunned.

Anya rubs her arm, smiling sheepishly. "I didn't know I could trust you until now." She says.

"How do you know I won't run off with this right now?"

"I don't." The answer is so brutal, Dmitry almost feels winded.

"If you weren't a girl, I'd..." he trails off.

Dmitry doesn't finish the sentence, just grabs her by the waist and lifts her in a parody to their waltz from a week ago. Anya shrieks in delight and he sets her down as close to him as he dares. Dmitry looks down at her, Anya looks up at him.

Dmitry wants to kiss her. He realises that in a wave. He wants to lean down and cup her face in his hands, wants to kiss Anya on his favourite bridge, in front of his favourite view of the whole city.

Her hands are on his biceps. The music box is in her pocket. Her diamond is clutched in his right fist. It would be so easy.

It would be like falling asleep.

He could kiss Anya.

Dmitry doesn't get the chance.

 

**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you liked this, please leave me a comment, and/or kudos. Hmu on Tumblr @nose-coffee.
> 
> Again, thank you, hope you enjoyed.


End file.
